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Archive for the ‘Acute Care Pathway redesign’ Category

September’s steering group meeting was cancelled. The next meeting is on 15th October. Please bring your views on the new pathway to Karen at the regular forum and carers meetings as well as through the Oasis group, or by email. You can also speak to St Helens LINks, 5 Boroughs themselves or by using Patient Opinion’s website. But, however you do it, please feed back your experiences – both good and bad – so that we can all work together to get it right.

This meeting was a joint meeting with St Helens LINks to provide another opportunity for people to find out about and feed into the Acute Care Pathway (ACP) at 5 Boroughs. Karen is the Forum and Carers representative at the ACP steering group and Emma is the LINks representative (she couldn’t attend today’s meeting, so Roman attended in her place).

Several people had sent apologies specifically because of this joint meeting. We have therefore agreed that future joint meetings will be on separate days to our regular Forum. The joint meetings are open to all and we encourage people to attend to make their views known.

We had a long and productive discussion. Key points included:

the Trust is still working closely with Open Mind

there should now be no ‘wrong referrals’

if someone leaves the service, they should be able to get back in promptly if necessary

Vista Road will still be there

dual diagnosis – they welcome evidence about services that are working well elsewhere

the recovery teams will start in December

service users and carers will be involved in developing the recovery teams

Lesley described that she has found the new assessment and home treatment teams are working well and have a very positive and pro-active approach.

Emma had attended the meeting of the Acute Care Pathway steering group on 12th June. She gave feedback about the meeting, and provided copies of the minutes.

We gave her a case study about how the model is causing anxiety for one person who is likely to get reduced support. She will type this up and give to 5 Boroughs as a demonstration about how people might be affected by their changes. Another Forum member described how he is waiting on a referral for support through Open Mind.

Everyone was very concerned that access to additional services may be dependent on being supported by a psychiatrist. That includes services such as those provided by together as well as benefits. So that when people are discharged from secondary mental health services, they may lose a lot of support all at the same time.

Some people mentioned that GPs are charging for a letter to support people’s assessments for benefits. If this happens to you, please let us, or Emma, know.

From 11 June, there will be a new 24 hour assessment service and a dedicated home treatment team to help people remain in the community.

We know that any change can make people feel anxious, but people who already use services should not really notice these new teams – we should see better services, with increased staffing for these teams and work done ‘behind the scenes’ to improve their systems. Phone numbers won’t change. Family, including carers and young carers, may be worried by the emphasis on home treatment and the lack of respite services locally. We hope that the additional support from the home treatment team, will help the whole family.

We have service user and carer representatives on the new local steering group for this project. It meets every 6 weeks. There will also be meetings at the United Reformed Church with Sam Oliver, Assistant Director – Change Programmes, 5 Boroughs. These are an opportunity to feed any concerns and compliments to the steering group. (See dates on the diary).